Amazon.co.uk: The Devil You Know: Mike Carey: Books

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Product Description

Richard Morgan, award-winning author of Altered Carbon
"Grabs you from the first out-of-nowhere nasty surprise, and rarely lets go... You'll be up all night finishing this one" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Daily Express
"Carey drives this thriller like Chandler at the wheel of a runaway hearse" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

An entertaining read with some padding, 20 Jun 2007

By	tybalt-quin (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil You Know: A Felix Castor Novel (Felix Castor Novel 1) (Paperback)

I find Carey's alternative London, full of ghosts and zombies to be fascinating and I've never seen anything like his take on were-creatures before (essentially, they're ghosts that bind animal flesh to themselves to form a human shape). He skillfully uses Felix Castor's first person perspective to help navigate through this world and Castor's distinctive voice easily makes you buy into what is happening.

The central mystery to the story revolves around a veiled ghost haunting a documentary archive in central London. From a benign start the ghost has started to attack some of the employees and the curator wants it exorcised as quickly as possible. The problem is that Castor has been warned that getting involved in the case could kill him and as he tries to work out who the ghost is and why she's haunting the building, he discovers links with a sinister underworld criminal who brings new meaning to the word 'ruthless' and also to rogue exorcists who are taking their art to frightening levels.

There is some padding to the story - notably a scene where Castor visits Bunhill Row cemetary to try and center himself, which doesn't add a great deal. Strictly speaking, I think that the beginning of the story (where Castor is performing as a magician for a childrens' party) is an obvious way to crowbar in one plot strand aimed at fleshing out the mystery. It's entertaining but I wonder if Carey could have achieved the same effect in a different way.

I also thought that some of the characters were a little cardboard cut out. For example, the main villain has evil written through him like a stick of rock, which kind of takes away some of the mystery element, and makes the ending a little predictable. This is particularly disappointing when Castor himself is such a multi-levelled character - a reluctant hero who's not entirely comfortable with what he does.

I'm surprised to find this book labelled as a horror novel, when to me it seemed to be quintessential urban fantasy. There are some disturbing moments - notably with the succubus Juliet but the description isn't excessively gory and does fit in with the plot. All in all it's a good, solid read and with enough dark humour to keep you wryly chuckling.

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent debut novel from a great comic writer, 25 May 2006

By	Mr. Stephen Davies (Bristol, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil You Know: A Felix Castor Novel (Felix Castor Novel 1) (Paperback)

Fans of HellBlazer will recognise the name Mike Carey, as will fans of Lucifer, the ongoing series from Vertigo comics.

Carey's been writing in the comics world for quite some time now, recently carrying on some of the fae stories started in Neil Gaiman's Sandman as well as developing Lucifer and taking the reigns of writing Constantine stories.

This is his first novel, and whilst it has some of the flavour of a HellBlazer story there's enough there which is different to keep things fresh. The story involves a world very much like ours excepting the fact that ghosts not only exist, they are recognized by the government with all the legal issues that causes.

The main character, Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist who is hired to remove the presence of a Ghost from a London hall of records. Part of his method of exorcism is to learn about his subject, and in the course of doing so he realizes things are not quite what they seem.

Part mystery, part occult story this is an excellent read. Carey writes characters very well, as those who know his comic works will I'm sure agree. The story is by turns amusing, exciting and disturbing which makes for a very powerful read. Highly recommended.

Oh, and to correct one of the other entries Constantine is one of Alan Moore's creations, though Mike did a damn good job of writing an extended set of stories for the HellBlazer title.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Not just John Constantine revisited, 18 April 2006

By	D. C. Harold "dharold" (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil You Know: A Felix Castor Novel (Felix Castor Novel 1) (Paperback)

I really thought this would be a prose version of Carey's Constantine / Hellblazer comics work and the first pages with lots of "London, my place of power" type stuff and a rather cruel Contantinesque way of ending a birthday party pretty much had me convinced. But then the broader humour, some Silence of the Lambs overtones, and general sexiness kicked in and it became clear that whilst Contantine may have been the kicking off point his influence diminishes as the book progresses and something rather spiffy results - though you'll spend a lot of time spotting echos of other books and even films. (And Juliet is a worryingly Constaninesque character to wrap on so lets hope the next novel keeps on in an original vein and doesn't turn her into Ellie...) Highly recommended. I finished it in less that a weekend cos I couldn't put it down.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Definitely X files stuff
I picked up this book in a second hand shop not knowing what to expect as I have never read this author before, but I will certainly read the rest of them now. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Tallulah

wonderfull
was a bit weary as he used to write for hellblazer, but is an original, gripping and entertaining supernatural noir story, with heart. Bring on the new ones

Published 3 months ago by P. Wagner